Choices

Over the past week, I had to make some pretty tough choices and decisions.

I have decided to follow the Singapore system in education and age cut-offs. I rang the ministry and was told that schools will only admit kids born within 1st Jan-31st Dec of the year and they all enter Primary 1 at age 7. They have K1, K2 being first and second year Kindy. Preschool/childcare starts at Pre-nursery, which is age 3. I have been asked to enrol Mathena for nursery next year as she's turning 4 nest year.

I rang a few schools and have not really been satisfied with the ones I have seen. They were either cheap but run down, to "Roman-Catholic-cy" or too expensive. Today we found a Baptist Kindy that runs a beautiful and Christian-like system. I have long given up the standards as good as Cedars back in Wollongong but this one I found has at least 30% of the same value systems as Cedars. The total year fees might even add up to be the same as what we are paying for Letitia in Australia and this includes the bus shuttle fees that takes her from our doorstep to the school and back. Mind you, all this excitement is only for a 3hour session from 11am-2pm for 5 days a week. The same for next year.

This means I will take a back seat with homeschooling (sorry, SB!) I will miss knowing and understanding Letitia's school level though I can still spend time with her when she returns in the afternoon or in the mornings before she goes. I do however like the 3hr per day concept as it allows the kids to rest (if needed) and me as a mom to have time with my child. I am hoping the extra year in Kindy will also expose Letitia to an extra year of listening and talking in Chinese. If all goes well and I pay up the fees, Letitia will start school tomorrow and she'll have her first excussion of Singapore on Friday. There's only 2 weeks left to this term and she will get a full week's holiday to continue with a 10-week Term 4. Phew! A lot of test runs for the next week.....

Why did I do what I did? I have found over the past week, even when we are doing things at home, Letitia was whimpering for school and it's routine. She missed the interaction with kids, with her old friends and the teacher. She loved every moment of being at home with me but I could see the zeal running low as she scans through her work sheets, sighing away as she tries to stay focused. She has however taken on the "phonics" thing by storm and spending hours on end reading books after books after books. She is now doing the Good News Bible New Testament, paragraph by paragraph and comparing them to the Kid's Bibles she has. To read and to tell me the parables. Her head is so buried in books that we struggle to get her attention when we need her to do things or just to talk to her. She also reads our blog when I am logged on. I will however spend more time (typical me!) to suss out her level with "work" and fun stuff at home.

Paid childcare for 3hours is called Playgroup. Mathena has had 2 days worth of this and has returned exhausted and very happy. I REALLY think she is ready to socialise. So far, no tears except lots of "jabber" on return of her day at "school". She is my baby and seeing her growing up still breaks my heart. Each time I take her to school, the staff are asking to put her there full time...for 5 days. My conviction is that she stays home with me for another year of so, to learn, grow and be nurtured in her home, with her mommy.